Published 1:52 pm, Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Eating fruits is good for you, but new research suggests that some fruits may be better than others, and that fruit juice is not a good substitute.

Recent studies have found that eating a greater variety, but not a greater quantity, of fruit significantly reduces the risk for Type 2 diabetes. Researchers then wondered whether some fruits might have a stronger effect.

Using data from three large health studies, they tracked diet and disease prospectively over a 12-year period in more than 185,000 people, of whom 12,198 developed Type 2 diabetes. The analysis appears online in BMJ.

Researchers found that some fruits — strawberries, oranges, peaches, plums and apricots — had no significant effect on the risk for Type 2 diabetes.

But eating grapes, apples and grapefruit all significantly reduced the risk.

The big winner: blueberries. Eating one to three servings a month decreased the risk by about 11 percent, and having five servings a week reduced it by 26 percent. Substituting fruit juice for whole fruits significantly increased the risk for disease.

Drinking before 1st pregnancy linked to breast cancer

Young women who regularly drink alcohol before their first pregnancy may be increasing their risk for breast cancer, a new study reports.

The prospective study of more than 150,000 women with no history of cancer also found that alcohol use before pregnancy was associated with an increased risk for proliferative benign breast disease, or BBD, noncancerous breast abnormalities that also raise the risk.

The study, published online in The Journal of the National Cancer Institute, found 1,609 cases of breast cancer and 970 of BBD over a 20-year follow-up.

The association grew stronge for cancer with increasing amounts of alcohol and time between a girl's first period and her first pregnancy.